Whom I will love and care for... 

For the Rest of Eternity..."

"As long as you love me of course..." 

"Hahaha..." 

A mischievous chuckle escaped his lips as he finished the sentence, while his light golden eyes were filled with possessiveness, almost bordering on madness,that Rhea missed from her angle.

Though his last line ticked her.

"Hmph...~ " 

"Who is going to love you, you shameless scoundrel?~",

saying that she separated from him and puffed up her cheeks.

"You are." 

"Dream on.~" 

"Hmm... We'll see about that." 

"But first, let's finish finish the monsters inside this gate. We can countinue this conversation after getting out."

"Fine.~" 

Galen reasoned, and Rhea begrudgingly accepted before both of them went through the path at the end of the cavern, which was previously blocked by the spider queen.

After going through the dim cave for another ten minutes, a sudden brightness assaulted their eyes and the cave opened up into a scorching wasteland. On the ground, only the husks of some withered trees nearby were any signs of this place having housed any greenery before. 

The sky of this place was dyed crimson, and was dome shaped, encircling this place like a sphere. When Galen scanned it with his soul senses, he cocluded that they were in some sort of a pocket dimension, with enough origin mana to sustain life inside.

The expanse was stretching for dozens of kilometres on either side with three groups of abominable monsters waiting for them in the distance, watching them with weariness.

The first group had three meters tall black coloured wolves, with twisting horns on their head, led by an even bigger wolf. With a towering height of four meters and a length of six meters, the wolf king also had three menacing horns on top of its head instead of one, with the middle horn reaching almost a meter in length.

The second group consisted of venomous scorpions, also black in colour, with a height of 2 meters. But curiously, they were led by a meter tall white scorpion who had a deep purple coloured stinger.

The last of them were a group of lizards, the fewest in number among the three groups, but because of their long bodies, between six to eight meters, they took up the most space at the clearing. 

Their head was a giant scaled monstrosity with a draconic face. Two meters in height and nearly twelve meters in length, the Lizard king stood in the middle of all three groups, with both the Wolf king and the Scorpion king lagging slightly behind, with slight respect and fear in their eyes. 

There were around 45 wolvels, 36 scorpions and about 15 lizards, present at the scene.

The reason for this massive gathering? 

The spider queen's pained howls.

While Rhea was busy enjoying her torturing session with the poor spider, its pitiful voice had been echoing across the wasteland for miles.

Erring in the side of caution, these monsters didn't immediately head to the queen arachne's aid. 

Instead, all of them joined together to create an united front – to face whatever that was coming, that could make even that prideful spider, let out wails of despair.

When the monsters finally saw Galen an Rhea emerge through the cave entrance, they were suddenly filled with doubts.

' These little critters were the ones who killed that spider? Surely it's not possible, right? ' 

That was the collective thought currently running through all of their minds.

Multiple confused growls and screeches could be heard from the crowd of monsters, filling the place with lots of noise.

Unable to take it anymore, the lizard king suddenly let out a roar of irritation. That finally shut them up for good. 

Seeing that, a low rumbling sound echoed from its chest in quiet satisfaction.

Then, turning towards the scorpion king, it motioned with its head.

Understanding the gesture, the meter tall scorpion didn't hesitate and shot towards Rhea and Galen, it's agility almost rivaling Rhea's own – probably because of some mutation or an innate skill.

Though a bit surprised by the monster's movement speed, Rhea still walked forward with calm eyes, twirling the daggers in her hands.

As the scorpion king shortened the distance between them, it suddenly turned its body and lashed out with its tail, aiming to pierce her chest.

Its lethal venom, which was more than ten times deadlier than other scorpions, was the main reason it could hold the leadership amongst them, other than its abnormal speed.

Not at all fazed by the attack, Rhea cooly dodged the stinger and retaliated with one of her daggers, cutting the monster's tail clean off from the base.

Before it could even react to the pain, her other dagger stabbed into its head, directly piercing its brain and killing it in the process. 

It wasn't given even a bit of chance to demonstrate any of its powers.

All the other monsters watched wide-eyed as the fearsome scorpion got butchered in moments.

After that, a strange silence settled over the entire expanse, broken only by the angry roar of the lizard king, tearing through the eardrums of every monster.

Losing one of its capable subordinates all of a sudden, it went mad with rage, ordering all of its subordinates to attack Rhea.

The monsters itself focused its attention on Galen to stop him, in case he decided to help her in the battle.

Seeing the ugly lizard trying to keep him in check, Galen was almost amused. Almost... 

"Though it might take some time, I know my babe can handle all of you alone even without my intervention, but..." 

"I also need to increase my kill count to complete my class promotion quest." 

"So..." 

"Let's dance." 

Unsheathing Black Fang, Galen's hands along with his sword, suddenly became a blur as he began slashing at the monster's direction with breakneck speed.

Each slash was accompanied by the emission of a mana blade, flashing for a brief moment before squarely landing on the lizard king.

Exactly two seconds later, after completing almost twenty slashes within that timeframe, he stopped and looked at his adversary, or what remained of it.

The lizard king's body laid there in a wretched state, severed into more than a hundred pieces. 

"Ah..."

"I may have overdone it a little..."

[ You're not fooling anyone with your remorseful face, Master.~ ]

"Haha..." 

"You got me there, Beth." 

"But it was still a shame. The lizard couldn't even block a single move of mine." 

"Dear Beth, It seems being too strong isn't always fun." 

[ ... ]

' Look at this narcissist. ' Beth thought to herself, not responding to his indirect boasting.

"Haa..." 

"What's done is done." 

"Now let's go kill some more monsters, before my purple haired bomshell of a milf finishes all of them." 

Saying that, Galen bolted forward and entered the chaotic battle taking place some distance away, on the other side of the clearing. 

After that, it was a total massacre with blood and bone fragments flying everywhere. The entire region was turned into a blood soaked battlefield, drenched with the monster blood.